Sunday, 4 July 2010

July 4th, 2010 [LONDON]

It's 12:19PM. I'm sitting a few seat down from where I was last night, sneakily (no food allowed in computer lab) munching on a "triple chicken" sandwich I bought from Sainsbury's on the way to the computer lab. I find myself thirsty now.

Alright. Today was amazing.

(soisannie)

It started in a less-than-awesome way. The bells from some church around our dorms were going off, and loudly, with no rhythmic value whatsoever. It was the worst. They just. wouldn't. stop.

Eventually they stopped.

Later in the afternoon I went on the "Abbey Road" tour. Which should realistically be renamed the "Human Frogger" tour. Every tourist ever wants to get that "Abbey Road" album cover photograph. And that's basically what this tour was about. Go do that. We arrived at the famous Zebra Crossing. Dozens of tourists were already there, all posing in the street.

Rule number 1: Never do this.

The locals literally would stop at the last second, going from 60 to 0 in about three feet, before barely sparing your stupid tourist life. They hate it. They hate it more than anything. And they want to run you over for even trying to mimic the Beatles. They will go out of their way to TRY to hit you.

Darren, Meredith, Josh and I all got the photo done though, like true American tourists on the Fourth of July.

So, after that we all went to dinner at "Gourmet Pizza" on Gabriel's Wharf. Robin, Kim, Darren, Annie, Josh, Meredith, and I were all there. It was great, and freaking delicious. After our post dinner fiasco of trying to divide the check, Josh, Mere, Dare, Annie, and I went for a walk down the Thames as dusk fell. We watched the most wonderful street performers do their thing, walked under the London Eye, saw the gorgeously lit Big Ben/Parliament, and sipped coffee.

You don't understand the enormity of the Eye until you stand beneath it. It is. Just. Beyond comprehension. SO COOL.

After a, quite frankly, chilly walk down the river, we decided to go "coozy up" (-Josh Thomas) in a pub. We found the DaVinci. Kati Marshall told us this place was awesome.

It was in fact. less than awesome.

One tiny Asian man stood behind the bar in an empty room smiling widely at us as loud early 90's Asian Dance/R&B music blared much too loudly in our ears. We were, basically, the only ones in there. It was the worst pub ever.

We were on our way back to the dorms, when we crossed a crosswalk. I saw a bus coming and hustled out of the way. Annie and Josh slowly (as usual) sauntered across the walk. Long story short, we're surprised Josh didn't get his slacks/sweat pants ripped off by the bus. Josh genuinely almost got hit by a bus.